Course: Oblivion (episode)
After activating a new advanced warp drive, Voyager and its crew begin to dissolve. Summary In ''Voyager'''s mess hall there's a great celebration with many crew present. It is the wedding of B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris. Kathryn Janeway is the master of ceremonies. Underneath the mess hall, however, there appears to be a strange anomaly present. More good news occurs when the Voyager crew finish work on a new advanced warp drive that could get them to Earth in minimal time. A strange reading is picked up, as a Jefferies tube underneath engineering is losing molecular cohesion. It is speculated that the new drive system is causing subspace radiation. Torres suddenly becomes violently ill and is admitted to sickbay. She is dying from the radiation. Tom Paris, before seeing Torres in sickbay, had already selected a place for their honeymoon: the Graystone Hotel. After telling Torres of this in sickbay, she dies, despite all attempts of reviving her. Chakotay and Tuvok review past encounters with aliens, planets, etc. to see if there is anything that could be causing Voyager to become unstable. They come upon the encounter of the biomimetic lifeforms on the Demon Class planet. In a test, Torres' corpse is injected with a dichromate catalyst. The results show that she was a biomimetic copy. In fact, every member of the crew, including Voyager, are biomimetic copies. The subspace radiation is beginning to degrade the entire crew. The crew was unaware of what was happening because the radiation was harmless to humanoids. Janeway is skeptical of the theories of some of her staff, and states that despite their perilous state, their goal is still to return to Earth. It isn't until the crew persuades her that she orders her staff to locate the closest Class Y planet to ensure their survival. A Class-Y planet is located, and Voyager sets a course to it. Upon arriving, the ship is set to condition blue and commences landing procedures. A mining vessel arrives and tells Voyager that the planet resides under the Ord'Mirit Mining Treaty. Continuing to land, Voyager is attacked by the vessel, exacerbating further degredation. Janeway orders the procedure cancelled and decides to return to the Demon-class planet, their real home. Over time, many of the Voyager crew die, including Chakotay and the Doctor's program. In order to preserve what the duplicate Voyager crew have discovered on their journey, Janeway tells Harry Kim and Seven of Nine to create a "time capsule" out of non-biomimetic materials. More problems are encountered, including the failing of the main deflector. Space dust begins to impact the hull. The deflector is reinitalized, but Kathryn Janeway perishes. Continuing on, Harry Kim takes command of Voyager, assisted by Seven. The degredation has become so severe that the warp drive begins to fail. Kim orders the time capsule to be launched, but the launcher is so degraded it destroys the capsule. Things get worse when the warp core threatens to breach. Without an isolytic converter, Seven can't stop the breach. The core is then ejected, causing Voyager to spin out of control. Suddenly, a vessel is detected; it is the real Voyager. Kim attempts to contact them, but communications are out. He transmits a distress signal instead. The USS Voyager detects the distress signal and proceeds to its location. Upon arrival, the crew finds only formless debris. With no traces upon which to make further investigations, the crew make note of the encounter in the ship's log and continue on their way home. Log Entries *''Captain's log, stardate 52586.3. We've had a lot to celebrate lately - Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, Ensign Harper's new baby, and the continued health of our enhanced warp drive, which has taken us within striking distance of home. '' *''Computer, begin chief engineer's log, supplemental. I've spent the last four hours analyzing the warp field schematics. But I'm still no closer to finding out what's going wrong. '' *''Captain's log, supplemental. We've lost 63 crewmen and our systems are continuing to fail. Though we're still five weeks away from the demon planet, we haven't given up hope. '' * (Log entry made by Harry Kim) Acting Captain's log, stardate 52597.4. Our situation's getting worse every day. More than 80% of the ship is uninhabitable. Most of the crew are gone. It seems less and less likely that the few of us left will reach our destination. '' Background Information * There has been a great deal of speculation by fans on how many of the episodes between "Demon" and "Course: Oblivion" took place on the mimetic ''Voyager. Given that the mimetic Tom Paris still had the rank of lieutenant and the real Tom Paris had been demoted to the rank of ensign (VOY: "Thirty Days"), at least some of the episodes took place on the real Voyager. During this episode, it is also notable that while Tuvok and Chakotay were rehashing the events of the last several months to determine the cause of their ship's degradation, the only event they mention that happened in an actual episode was their visit to the Demon-class planet; they mention other events that never occurred in the actual (real Voyager) timeline. Furthermore, no mention of the "enhanced warp drive" was ever made before this particular episode; one could infer that this is because the other episodes shown between "Demon" and "Course: Oblivion" were taking place on the real Voyager, as it is unlikely that the crew would have gone through such great lengths to acquire and use a transwarp coil without mentioning any potential enhancement to their own warp drive in the episode "Dark Frontier", which occurred two episodes before this one. * A number of viewers consider the inherent character flaws of the crew (Tom Paris' rebellious attitude, Kathryn Janeway's stubborness, etc.) to have been taken to their logical conclusion in this episode. * It is interesting to note that many other science fiction series have used various plot lines to allow their audiences to experience the protagonists' reaction to certain-death situations. These scenarios allow the viewer to observe if their favorite characters would react to the situation with integrity or if they would give in to character defects (as Tom Paris does when he begins to question the authority of the mimetic Captain Janeway). * Paris wears the rank pins of Lietuenant (J.G.) in this episode, until the real Voyager arrives. * This episode is what is often called a "bottle show". Links and References Guest Stars * David Keith Anderson as Crew Member (uncredited) References Ashmore; Chicago; Class Y planet; dichromate; enhanced warp drive; Graystone Hotel; Harper; isolytic converter; Kmada; message buoy; mimetic lifeform; N'Kree; Ord'mirit Mining Treaty; Podaris sector; Silver Blood; USS Voyager (mimetic); Vaskan sector; warp core ejection system Category:VOY episodes de:Endstation - Vergessenheit es:Course: Oblivion fr:Course: Oblivion nl:Course: Oblivion